The morality of war - Man's inhumanity to man

[James Arryn]

8 minutes ago, SeanF said:

That actually sounds quite funny, in a black as pitch sort of way.

Very much as I would imagine that the two D’s would have made “Confederate”.

If I remember correctly there’s a scene where the smart matriarchal slave lectures the naive younger slaves for falling for the British trickery, with lots of ‘will freedom keep us warm come winter’ keeping it real kinda stuff that could be straight up satire in another forum. 

[SeanF]

19 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Ukraine, would not. 

Nor the Taiwanese or South Koreans.

[SeanF]

14 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

If I remember correctly there’s a scene where the smart matriarchal slave lectures the stupid younger slaves for falling for the British trickery, with lots of ‘will freedom keep us warm come winter’ keeping it real kinda stuff that could be straight up satire in another forum. 

That is … quite something.

To my considerable embarrassment, I have to admit I once believed that Southern slave owners were mostly decent.

Actually taking the trouble to read about slavery cured me of that.  Now, I think that several hundred of them should have been strung up in 1865.

One could quite fairly produce a drama showing British officers being entirely cynical, in offering freedom for self-interested reasons, but at the same time, slaves still taking the opportunity to be freed.  

[James Arryn]

4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

That is … quite something.

To my considerable embarrassment, I have to admit I once believed that Southern slave owners were mostly decent.

Actually taking the trouble to read about slavery cured me of that.  Now, I think that several hundred of them should have been strung up in 1865.

One could quite fairly produce a drama showing British officers being entirely cynical, in offering freedom, but at the same time, slaves taking the opportunity to be freed.  

The episode opens with a scene of some slaves gathered around a fire code-singing about freedom and, knowing the clear but ~ understandable slant of the show, I remember thinking ‘Oh, this should be interesting’ re: how they would work around the Yank:slavery/Brit:freedom angle, not in a suspicious way, just kinda intrigued on which way this would take the show. 
 

I was NOT prepared.

[maarsen]

4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

That is … quite something.

To my considerable embarrassment, I have to admit I once believed that Southern slave owners were mostly decent.

Actually taking the trouble to read about slavery cured me of that.  Now, I think that several hundred of them should have been strung up in 1865.

One could quite fairly produce a drama showing British officers being entirely cynical, in offering freedom, but at the same time, slaves taking the opportunity to be freed.  

That has been done. Canadian tv has been doing this on the slaves who came to freedom and settled in Nova Scotia after the 13 colonies rebelled. Lawrence Hill wrote the novel The Book of Negroes and it was made into a drama by the CBC, I think.

BTW, Lawrence Hill is the brother of singer Dan Hill. Don't hold it against him.

[TormundsWoman]

4 hours ago, Spockydog said:

I take my dog to a big old pet superstore every few weeks as a special treat.

One of the first things she does after walking through the door is piss on the floor.

Should I feel ashamed? Bend down and wipe up my dog's piss?

Hell, no. Of course I shouldn't. Why not? Because every other fucking dog gets to piss on that floor the moment it enters the shop.

Why should my dog be any different?

 

Agreed. Your girl should definitely not be ashamed! neither the rest of the doggos.

I'd tip at the counter if possible tho. I have a feeling that's not something the peeps sign up for when they apply for work there. I could be wrong though, I don't know.

[TormundsWoman]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because “America First” will pull the US out of all international commitments.

I have a feeling you would be wrong about this. "America First" most likely, like "Global Intervention for Global Good yet First America", would keep the commitments it benefits America. And by America I really mean the US.

[Wade1865]

This thread is so beutiful ... really leaves me feeling ... refreshed. There's at least a half dozen or so discussions on warfare (and one dog, hahaha), poetized. And it illustrates how the West is the best, and also why it's important that the US leads it. I'm (kinda) looking forward to spending some time in the Far East sometime in the near future.

[Wade1865]

6 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Um... Norway?

Norway supported the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. I literally coordinated some of their direct support (aviation) assets.

6 hours ago, maarsen said:

Just off of the top of my head but Iceland?

Iceland supported the US in Iraq. Yes, even one of the most peaceful states on Earth provided Soldiers as well as moral-political support during war.

***

Gentlemen -- neither state has a spotless record; worse, if we consider their entire histories, which is more reasonable -- they are bloodied. Of course (imo), both still have great records as civilized (post-war era) peoples and would perform well as war crimes investigators / prosecutors, but their support in Iraq and Afghanistan carries some degree of responsibility for any war crimes commited there (knowingly or unknowingly; directly or indirectly).

Now, if want a truly innocent state (at least as far as external warfare goes), I'd recommend Vanuatu, located somewhere in the Pacific (i.e., peaceful in character or intent). Surely their nature affords them expertise. Here's an image of their Supreme Court facility.

[Padraig]

17 hours ago, James Arryn said:

3) The US ‘with us or against us/BS rationale’ was the turning point in international relations and essentially killed the diplomatic community’s soft power, built up over 50 years, to provide some form of (occasional) check on might m akes right. Putin is just a continuation of that. 

I don't know about this.  Countries have been invading other counties right through the Cold War.  Russia's war in Afghanistan being just one example.  

If you shorten the timeline to after the Cold War, you may have a point but then you are talking about a very short timespan.

Ultimately, i'm very skeptical of this idea that all these wars since Iraq can be laid at the feed of the US.  Its too simple.  It doesn't feel true. The world is way too complicated to say that this one factor is the prevalent reason for this war.  And the fact that people who really hate US imperialism are loudest in blaming even the Ukraine War on the US is just too convenient for them (I accept there is a chicken and egg situation going on here though).  Whether the US was to blame or not, somebody would have found a way to blame the US.

And it ignores how nasty the Russian regime is.  Russia would never let Ukraine easily slip out of its orbit.  I find it impossible to see how the decision to invade Iraq would effect that.   Sure, Russia has used the hypocrisy argument against the US but countries/people love the hypocrisy argument.  Its the default response.

Now, the consequences of the Iraq invasion.  That's a much more interesting line of exploration.  If the US had rolled over Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria then Russia probably would have been much more cautious about involving itself in a war in Ukraine.  Its US's apparent weakness (the cost of its war in Iraq and Afghanistan) that plays a role in Russia's decision, not its war crimes. 

And if the idea is that if the US had avoided wars for 20 years, its grace would have trickled down to Russia.  Well that is naïve and utopic.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Are you talking about Iraq? Because if so the obvious rebuttal is that Americans then had access to the exact same information as everyone else on the planet. 
 

edit: and, further, I’d argue that when yours is the country proposing invading another country, it kinda behooves you to at least know as much as all the people not proposing said invasion. 

 

4 hours ago, Larry of the Lake said:

Lol who's doing that?

Eta:

Oh wait are you arguing that Russians are getting some kind of a break here?  If the US was rounding up protesters and disappearing them or conscripting them maybe you'd have a point, but I'm not seeing anywhere near the levels of ignorant pro-war jingoism coming out of Russia that we saw in the US in the early 2000's.

Eta2: plus, the US had a 'free' press at the time.  

And the quote marks are what's key. Yes there is a free press here, but at the time it was overwhelmingly pro-war and that's what most Americans saw. Again, the average American has a pathetic depth of knowledge on most subjects and they generally aren't going to do a ton of additional learning. The tube told them we needed to go to war and so they agreed. Not everyone was for the war, but I really don't recall many people who were anti-war speaking up super loudly until support for the war started to decline.

3 hours ago, Relic said:

It was as obvious back then as it is now. 

Even if it was obvious to you and I back then, that was generally not the case. Shit, 77 senators voted to go to war and they had a much better understanding of the flimsy justifications for doing so.

[Larry of the Lawn]

37 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

And the quote marks are what's key. Yes there is a free press here, but at the time it was overwhelmingly pro-war and that's what most Americans saw. Again, the average American has a pathetic depth of knowledge on most subjects and they generally aren't going to do a ton of additional learning. The tube told them we needed to go to war and so they agreed. Not everyone was for the war, but I really don't recall many people who were anti-war speaking up super loudly until support for the war started to decline.

Even if it was obvious to you and I back then, that was generally not the case. Shit, 77 senators voted to go to war and they had a much better understanding of the flimsy justifications for doing so.

Yes, I was there I remember.  Did you ever wonder why 77 Senators voted to go to war?

None of this is pertinent though to this double standard I've been waiting to hear about, which apparently is just that you think that the American public is unfairly judged to be supporting pointless wars?

 

[DMC]

40 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And the quote marks are what's key. Yes there is a free press here, but at the time it was overwhelmingly pro-war and that's what most Americans saw. Again, the average American has a pathetic depth of knowledge on most subjects and they generally aren't going to do a ton of additional learning. The tube told them we needed to go to war and so they agreed. Not everyone was for the war, but I really don't recall many people who were anti-war speaking up super loudly until support for the war started to decline.

I think this entire thread is predominately whining for whining's sake, but this is a very inaccurate depiction of the lead up to the war.  The media might have been in the bag, sure - and particularly the reputations of NYT and WaPo suffered considerably because of this.  However, in terms of the American public there was significant opposition.  Here's a good rundown on public sentiment:

Quote

In sum, public opinion on the eve of war with Iraq was permissive—it was willing to follow the White House to war but not demanding war. About 30 percent of Americans were convinced that war was not only just but necessary. Another 30 percent firmly believed that a war could not be justified. The remaining 40 percent could imagine scenarios in which it made sense to go to war as well as scenarios in which it didn’t. It was this “movable middle” that the Bush White House targeted in its public comments in the weeks leading up to war.

While it certainly wasn't reflected in Congress - particularly the Senate - over half of Democratic voters (55 percent) were consistently opposed to war during its lead-up.  There was a huge rally effect immediately upon invasion (as the link details), sure, but, well, that's why we still teach students about the rally round the flag effect.  It also frankly didn't last too long.

[Jace, Extat]

10 hours ago, Spockydog said:

There are plenty of countries whose foreign policy does not involve routinely murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians.

 

Give me names. Political leaders. We will make a province of them.

9 hours ago, Spockydog said:

I have similar thoughts about my own country. Never gonna happen, though.

 

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It’s incredibly difficult.

Laughably self-defeating is what it is. These inward searches for bretherenship among all men are nearly finished. A few more years. A few more superstorms and school massacres and these dead-eyed, barely-literate, can't-think-for-shit TikTok addled chiren (every one of which a walking audio/visual stimuli dependant of the Chinese government) are gonna goose step from class to class learning about how THEY can make sure that America the Beautiful's neverending demand for raw materials and GDP growth is only sated through the precision piloting of advanced unmanned aircraft. 

The future is gonna get dark. Embrace the horror now and you can have some fun with it.

Probably clear by now that I think the first strategic (city(like, usually)) target of a hydrogen bomb will be in Pakistan or India (and the second will be either Pakistan or India as a response to the first). That will be the moment when the Age of Enlightenment is really over. We've been flirting with the Nuclear Age for a long time, but credit to the men (yeah, men. Take your credit in this breath because the next one gonna sting) who held relevant power since the fifties for managing to keep us from really entering the next stage of human development before now. Whatever the meany meanness of nation states and their policies (grow up, it is become stale) throughout the long peace, the major powers all managed to keep most of their subjects from experiencing the horrors (and now, potential apocalypses) of total war. Good job to those men. 

Bur they also never really got 'round to, like, solving the problem of nuclear capabilities among great rivals because there was a WHOLE WORLD to exploit (that's what that WWII was about). Everybody was makin' money! Everyone who matters, at least. So we missed the boat on some kind of peacefully unified Earth Alliance. Just wasn't time. The stock market, y'know? Kid's got a baseball game that I just gotta make by the end of the third act. Shit falls off the to do list. Whaddya gonna do?

9 hours ago, Gorn said:

 

 

Second, if you host a terrorist group, you are responsible for their actions. NATO attacked the Taliban under the exact same casus belli which caused Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia at the beginning of WWI. And the Franz Ferdinand assassination was a far less destructive event than 9/11.

 

Interesting comparison. I think I disagree (entirely superfluous comment incoming).

I think the assassination of the heir to the Empire was a much more... relevant... thing for the Austrians than the loss of some towers and a piece of a too-sided shape. 

I know you said destructive not relevant, I just had to quibble. It was an interesting thought I've not entertained before. Lots and lots of time I've heard them compared as catalysts to war, but the question of which was actually, practically, more politically relevant never occurred to me.

I think I go with the death of the dude who would have been the next head of state. It's more than the fact that this guy is gonna have the job, and so like he himself is important for that reason. There were years and years of politicking to get Franzy selected as the heir. The demands around his relationship to his common wife and their children's political rights alone probably meant a lot more to the upper crust of Austria-Hungary than three thousand dead laborers meant to the senators of the U.S.

But obviously that's some idle hair-splitting and ultimately irrelevant.

8 hours ago, James Arryn said:

 Unless you are saying America will never be able to hold itself accountable because of the presence of people like that, in which case we should just enshrine Jaehaerys’ Doctrine of Exceptionalism, America will go where it pleases and do what it pleases and everyone else better just learn to shut up and take it?

I mean I've been politically opposed to this inevitability for a long time, but buddy... The conceit of "don't be monstrous" is already hanging by a thread in America and we're the safest most powerful people in human history. Do you think that desire to be decent is going to increase or decrease amongst the population as resources require increasingly overt protection by a safe strongman conveniently like the U.S.A. ? 

I'll take my answer off the air.

[Spockydog]

5 minutes ago, Firebrand Jace said:

Give me names. Political leaders. We will make a province of them.

The women. Just herd up all the female leaders. We'll surely be saved.

*checks news in Italy*

Erm....

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Larry of the Lake said:

Yes, I was there I remember.  Did you ever wonder why 77 Senators voted to go to war?

Same reasons as always. Some supported it, some were afraid to vote against it, some saw how they could benefit/profit from it, all of the above or for some other random reason. 

Quote

None of this is pertinent though to this double standard I've been waiting to hear about, which apparently is just that you think that the American public is unfairly judged to be supporting pointless wars?

Yeah, thought that was clear from my first post. Support for the war went up during the build up and initial invasion, but declined afterwards and earlier than some remember. Hasn't stopped people from painting the entire body politic as basically being the worst parts of the Republican party.

3 hours ago, DMC said:

I think this entire thread is predominately whining for whining's sake, but this is a very inaccurate depiction of the lead up to the war.  The media might have been in the bag, sure - and particularly the reputations of NYT and WaPo suffered considerably because of this.  However, in terms of the American public there was significant opposition.  Here's a good rundown on public sentiment:

While it certainly wasn't reflected in Congress - particularly the Senate - over half of Democratic voters (55 percent) were consistently opposed to war during its lead-up.  There was a huge rally effect immediately upon invasion (as the link details), sure, but, well, that's why we still teach students about the rally round the flag effect.  It also frankly didn't last too long.

Not sure what you think is inaccurate based on my post and a few others relating to the subject. Yes there was a roughly 30/30/40 split leading up to the war, and based on a strong majority of polls I just looked at most of the latter moved to the pro war side (along with some of the 30% against the war). Depending on how the question was asked, support for the war ranged from the low to mid 60s to the mid 70s (one Gallup poll had a 90% positive response about how the war was going in March of 2003). This happened because of exactly what you and I said, the media was clearly on one side and people rallied to the cause. And then support collapsed, first at a trickle then at a flood. 

[Jace, Extat]

41 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

The women. Just herd up all the female leaders. We'll surely be saved.

*checks news in Italy*

Erm....

A much smarter, much more genderless [gonna check that box right now so I'm allowed to offer a science-supported hypothesis], individual than myself would argue passionately that the female-standard brain and informational processing capacities are more fit to navigate a world in which escalations of violence are measured by the holocaust than a male-standard brain. 

(My best friend from HS is literally a genius. Brain the size of a Volkswagen and twice as fast.) 

Alas, we as yet lack the data to do more than guess. The elimination of societies by way of verbal order has, until now, been an entirely masculine affair. Though if I know my humans, the scarier things get the stupider/biggerer/more manly man they'll look to for protection and so this will probably remain an open question even after whatever successor species inherits this world we homo sapien (singular, to identify agency of species rather than individual) have so manfully mismanaged. 

But hey, hooray for nature, that successor species will probably be naturally equipped to handle radiation poisoning better than we are. Bright sides, and all that Five-hundred million years from now the cockroachians of Roche, New Roach -U.S.R. won't even know you were supposed to feel bad for nuking an enemy hive. 

[DMC]

53 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Depending on how the question was asked, support for the war ranged from the low to mid 60s to the mid 70s (one Gallup poll had a 90% positive response about how the war was going in March of 2003). This happened because of exactly what you and I said, the media was clearly on one side and people rallied to the cause. And then support collapsed, first at a trickle then at a flood. 

Again, this is inaccurate.  Support for the war did not get even up to 60 percent before the war, let alone higher.  Then, again, there was the rally effect, but this dissipated fairly quickly.  You're giving a wrong impression on how the popular the war actually was.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

44 minutes ago, DMC said:

Again, this is inaccurate.  Support for the war did not get even up to 60 percent before the war, let alone higher.  Then, again, there was the rally effect, but this dissipated fairly quickly.  You're giving a wrong impression on how the popular the war actually was.

This feels like you're getting cute. No, it did not hit 60% before the war, but prior to the actual invasion Gallup found a 59-35 split for the war on the extreme ends. 

Anyways, the point I was trying to make, and not just in the one post that you quoted, is that some early markers for high support of the invasion and war skew a lot of people's perception of how much the public supported the war when looking at it in its totality, even in just the first few years, and that it's often used to frame the overall public in the US in a negative light, so again on the first part we're actually in agreement, I'm just making a different argument than you after that point. 

[Darzin]

I think people ar severely overestimating the interventionistic tendencies of the MAGA?America First Wing of the Republican party.  They are not Bush era neocons. In 2016 Trump ran as the anit-war candidate against Hillary Clinton. Trump tried withdraw from Syria and laid the ground work for Afghanistan. Team Trump and the MAGAs are awful but they are not uber hawkes. 

I think Americans are pretty critical of the "bad wars" America has done. You don't find many defenders of the Iraq war or Vietnam war these days. Americans can' take being the bad guys? Maybe in a random ship movie, but there is a whole genre of movies showing Americans in a bad light and the whole folly of the Vietnam war. 

Twenty years after Iraq the American people are tired and wary of war. There probably won't be something like it in my lifetime.